Wanda Little
Purchased this book on a recommendation from a friend who knows the author. Didn’t know what to expect. I was pleseantly surprised. Waves of Reprisal details the journey that a young woman, Hanyma, takes after loosing her family at the hands of a bunch of psycho land pirates that are destroying every village they come across. With nothing left to loose, Hanyma decides on revenge, but hits the proverbial brick wall when on her own. Eventually she teams up with a synthoid and a boy that resembles her lost brother. Together the three of them uncover an emergency store of cloned humans that was buried just before a nuclear war. Suspense ensues as the increasingly larger party tries to make it safe havens while being pursued and attacked by the same psychos who killed Hanyma’s family. The book excels at slowly revealing the greater machinations behind both the good and bad guys. The good guys have master plans, and the bad guys (though appearing at first to be just a bunch of bloodthirsty thugs) also have master plans. Hanyma is caught in the middle, and looses her naivety as she develops. Some decent character complexity and genuine emotion throughout Waves of Reprisal. However pacing in the middle could have been tightened; wolves subplot was interesting but left somewhat unexplained as to its significantce.
Mal Vane
I am always leery of first-time authors, especially in this digital age where anyone can publish to Amazon. The beautiful illustrative cover and credit given to a professional editor provided Malcom Little with a level of credibility not often seen in first-timers. Along with the low price and a endorsement from a colleague, I decided to purchase Waves of Reprisal and delve into Little’s tale of a future primitive anarchy. After tearing through its two dozen chapters, I would characterize my opinion of WOR as “delightful”. Little manages to blend many elements effectively: a pastoral future world beset by violent maniacs, hypothetical technologies, journeys across thousands of miles – all of that exposed in the plot as deeply conceived characters maneuver amongst schemes established over a millennia prior. Hanyma, the main protagonist, was a particular treat. A young, adventuresome woman (who has a Sanskrit name like mine) who is thrown to the wolves at the outset. She develops quite brilliantly as the lead. But Hanyma is just the start. Her robotic companion Lascax also goes on a personal journey of discovery, one that costs the machine a few friendships and a few metal limbs. The ancillary characters are an array of copycat clones that provide ample support in helping the mains develop. I was particularly intrigued by one called Olivier, an obvious Frenchman who relishes cuisine as well as acts of bravery. Ultimately though, nobody was more intriguing to me than the villainess Travers. It was obvious the author wanted to show us what would happen to Hanyma if she had been recruited by the group of genocidal maniacs. Travers was a compelling mirror of the protagonist, one whose tale – I believe – is yet to make its full impact. Besides the characterizations, the plot is straightforward for an anarchical future scifi, though it does punctuate it with tense scenes of action and drama. A couple of the characters needed more fleshing out, such as the boy companion and the one-dimensional psychopath named Tulock (the focus of Hanyma’s mission of revenge). However, what was left for us at the end was a semi-epic that was an enjoyable read, one that is obviously setting up for a bigger sequel with bigger stakes.
